Promote Your Music or Promote Your Band

Music Forums

There are many music forums on the internet that attract a big following. Most forums don't like spam so don't try and go in and just submit a message of no benefit. Instead, use the author bio to add a link to your band's website or even list your band under the "introduce your band" forum. Forums are a great way to network and you never know who is reading your posts!

Free Music Networks

Two of the best are Free Music Networks are MySpace Music and My Band Mate. Both have built sites that are specifically catered towards the music industry. Each site has the key features such as video, music samples, photos, post event or gig dates, internal mail system, forums, chat and more. Be sure to create a professional profile that showacases your best songs, photos and videos. These sites are a great way to connect with your fans and generate more interest.

Advertise

Advertise via Google Adwords. This option does cost money, however, if you set yourself a budget you can promote your band to a specific region of the world or to all countries. Simply set your daily budget, your cost per click that you are willing to pay, create your adwords with title and catchy text and then activate it to go live.

Press Releases

There are a number of free press release services on the internet where you can write and distribute a press release for free. Many of these services also offer more features and exposure for a fee.

Social Bookmarking

Be sure to bookmark your website pages, articles or press releases to the popular sites such as Digg, Reddit, Technorati, Jumptags and Stumbleupon. This will not only provide an avenue for more people interested in your genre of music to sample your music but it will also spread news about you across the internet.

Go to Music Festivals

In order to promote yourself you will need to play for free or for a small amount of money. Find out what music festivals are on in your region or country and when. Then request an opportunity to play. Many festivals will have bands and musicians playing throughout the streets at the same time.

Play at Top Music Venues on Free Nights

Many of the most well known music venues will have a night where bands can play for free. Often you will be allocated a short amount of time on the stage so you will need to get your audiences attention right from the start. No warm-up songs, just hit them right from the start with one of your best songs. An example of a famous music venue is the ESPY in Australia which allows for unsigned artists to play on a Tuesday night for free. Music Agents and Promoters from My Band Mate have stated that they will regularly attend these nights to see if they can find any up and coming bands or potential musicians for future promotion.

Hand out free CD's outside big concerts of similar music

Target a concert where the bands playing are in the same genre of music as you. For example it is a waste of time if you are in a rock band and handed out free CD's outside of a Reggae concert. Reach your target audience! I recently attended a Powderfinger concert in Melbourne and as soon as I walked out the door I was greeted by a young guy who was handing out home made CD's of his band. The next day I decided to play the CD and see what he was like. As a result in liking his music I contacted him regarding future promotion. You just never know what leads may arise from just one effort to promote your music.

Send demos to radio stations and agents

It is quite easy and cheap to make your own CD's so it will require small outlay of money to send off twenty CD's. The key point is to stand out from the rest of the demos these agents get every day. Have a funky CD design, personally deliver the CD, have someone represent you or better yet get someone on the inside to help you out. 30 seconds is about what you have to win over the person listening to your music. Once again hit them with your best song right from the start. No need to add all your songs as they don't have the time to listen to much more. If they like what they hear they may sample a few other songs. Some agents and radio stations have days where artists like you can go in and audition. Basically, they are looking for the next big thing.

Create your own website

All bands should have a website. If not then you better have a profile on MySpace or MyBandMate.com where you can utilize all of their key features to promote your band. You should also use these sites even if you have your own site. Use them to link to your home website. What you do with your website will depend on your budget. You can easily get a website for only a few hundred dollars. In fact, GoDaddy will allow you to build a site using their templates and also gain a year of hosting for less than a hundred dollars. Definitely a start for someone on a small budget.

Squidoo

I know, you may not have heard of Squidoo before. However, Squidoo allows you to build your own web page with all of their great and easy to use features to promote your band or music. Pages on Squidoo tend to receive high page rankings in the search engines.

A couple more great ways to promote your music include having your own newsletter which allows for your fans to stay up to date with new songs, CDs, gigs, band member changes and more. You can also start your own blog; try creating one for free at wordpress.com. One great marketing tool is to submit related music articles to "Article Directories" and have a bio and active link to your website at the bottom of the article. You can also take on gigs at various events outside of music clubs such as weddings, festivals, parties to give you more exposure to a wider audience.

These are some of the most successful ways that professional band promoters and internet marketers use to promote their music or the music of one of their clients. Good luck!